Interview No. 4:

Francis:
“Many Marxists are Good People”, No Women Cardinals, won’t Rule Out “Communion” for Public Adulterers, believes in “Ecumenism of Blood”, Non-Catholic Martyrs, says Orthodox have Apostolic Succession

The Italian paper La Stampa has just published an exclusive interview with Mr. Jorge Bergoglio, the loquacious head of the Vatican II Sect, commonly known under his pseudonym, “Pope Francis.”

The full text of the interview has now been released online (previously, only La Stampa‘s print edition had the full transcript):

“God always opens doors, he never closes them. He is the father who opens doors for us. The second thing he says is: don’t be afraid of tenderness. When Christians forget about hope and tenderness they become a cold Church, that loses its sense of direction and is held back by ideologies and worldly attitudes, whereas God’s simplicity tells you: go forward, I am a Father who caresses you.”

“The message announced to us in the Gospels is a message of joy. The evangelists described a joyful event to us. They do not discuss about the unjust world and how God could be born into such a world. All this is the fruit of our own contemplations: the poor, the child that is born into a precarious situation. The (first) Christmas was not a condemnation of social injustice and poverty; it was an announcement of joy. Everything else are conclusions that we draw. Some are correct, others are less so and others still are ideologized.”

“We cannot think of Christmas without thinking of the Holy land. Fifty years ago, Paul VI had the courage to go out and go there and this marked the beginning of the era of papal journeys. I would also like to go there, to meet my brother Bartholomew, the Patriarch of Constantinople, and commemorate this 50th anniversary with him, renewing that embrace which took place between Pope Montini and Athenagoras in Jerusalem, in 1964. We are preparing for this.”

“One man who has been a life mentor for me is Dostoevskij and his explicit and implicit question ‘Why do children suffer?’ has always gone round in my heart. There is no explanation.”

“When I come across a suffering child, the only prayer that comes to mind is the ‘why’ prayer. Why Lord? He doesn’t explain anything to me. But I can feel Him looking at me. So I can say: You know why, I don’t and You won’t tell me, but You’re looking at me and I trust You, Lord, I trust your gaze.”

About being called a “Marxist” by some “ultra-conservatives”: “The Marxist ideology is wrong. But I have met many Marxists in my life who are good people, so I don’t feel offended.”

“There is nothing in the Exhortation [Evangelii Gaudium] that cannot be found in the social Doctrine of the Church.”

On the Eastern Schismatic Patriarchs: The Monophysite Tawadros II “is a mystic, he would enter the chapel, remove his shoes and go and pray. I felt like their brother. They have the apostolic succession; I received them as brother bishops. It is painful that we are not yet able to celebrate the Eucharist together, but there is friendship. I believe that the way forward is this: friendship, common work and prayer for unity. We blessed each other; one brother blesses the other, one brother is called Peter and the other Andrew, Mark, Thomas…”

“Today there is an ecumenism of blood. In some countries they kill Christians for wearing a cross or having a Bible and before they kill them they do not ask them whether they are Anglican, Lutheran, Catholic or Orthodox. Their blood is mixed. To those who kill we are Christians. We are united in blood, even though we have not yet managed to take necessary steps towards unity between us and perhaps the time has not yet come. Unity is a gift that we need to ask for.”

“I knew a parish priest in Hamburg who was dealing with the beatification cause of a Catholic priest guillotined by the Nazis for teaching children the catechism. After him, in the list of condemned individuals, was a Lutheran pastor who was killed for the same reason. Their blood was mixed. The parish priest told me he had gone to the bishop and said to him: ‘I will continue to deal with the cause, but both of their causes, not just the Catholic priest’s.’ This is what ecumenism of blood is.”

“I spoke about baptism and communion as spiritual food that helps one to go on; it is to be considered a remedy not a prize. Some immediately thought about the sacraments for remarried divorcees, but I did not refer to any specific cases; I simply wanted to point out a principle. We must try to facilitate people’s faith, rather than control it. Last year in Argentina I condemned the attitude of some priests who did not baptise the children of unmarried mothers. This is a sick mentality.”

“The exclusion of divorced people who contract a second marriage from communion is not a sanction. It is important to remember this. But I didn’t talk about this in the Exhortation.”

On the meetings with the “Super 8” Cardinal Advisors: “I am always present at the meetings, except for Wednesday mornings when I have the General Audience. But I don’t speak, I just listen and that does me good.”

“I don’t know where this idea sprang from. Women in the Church must be valued not ‘clericalised’. Whoever thinks of women as cardinals suffers a bit from clericalism.”

Please see our “Reality Check” further down below for Catholic responses to some of what Francis has said. Already, it is quite clear once again that Jorge Bergoglio does not profess the Catholic Faith and, consequently, is not a member of the Catholic Church (cf. Pope Pius XII, Encyclical Mystici Corporis, par. 23).

What will happen next? We know what to expect: The Novus Ordo’s paid bloggers and apologists will crank out pages upon pages of “what the Pope really said/meant” articles, mostly emphasizing the sentimental and the few orthodox things found in the text, while minimizing or spinning the heterodox/erroneous claptrap. Then, in between posts of ravioli and lentil soup, “Father” Zuhlsdorf will tell us to relax because, hey, it’s just an interview, so it doesn’t matter what Francis says. Then the secular media will gush over their apostate darling, and those few pious, good-willed souls in the New Church that are actually trying to be Catholic will once again feel betrayed and insulted by the narcissist in the Vatican who claims to be the Pope of the Catholic Church.

Really, do we need to go through all this again — and just before Christmas?

Meanwhile, our Italian-speaking visitors may be interested in THIS VIDEO in which journalist Andrea Tornielli speaks about the interview he conducted with Francis, which took place on December 10 and lasted 1 hour and 35 minutes.

Reality Check:

Why do Children suffer? Francis says “there is no explanation”, but of course there is. All the descendants of Adam are the progeny of a fallen race. With the first sin, death and suffering came into the world (cf. Gen 3:16-19; Rom 5:12); they are a punishment for the disobedience of Adam, a punishment we “inherit” in virtue of being members of his race and having lost sanctifying grace (cf. Ps 50:7). Added to original sin is personal sin, and though little children have not committed personal sin, they are affected by the sins (negligences, etc.) of others, and hence, they lamentably suffer. We must ease their suffering as much as we can (corporal works of mercy), but we must also provide them with spiritual instruction and baptize them (spiritual works of mercy) so that not only their bodies can be saved, but more importantly, their souls. This is all basic Catholic teaching and not terribly complicated. But Francis rejects Catholicism. In fact, he would probably derogatorily consider this answer the manifestation of an “ideology.” Modernists don’t like answers or clarity; they love questions, confusion, and doubt.

Francis says he has met “many Marxists who are good people.” But how can they be “good”? “None is good but God alone,” Our Blessed Lord says (Lk 18:19); meaning He is the source of all goodness and holiness, and we can only justly be considered “good” inasmuch as we have the Divine Life in us, that is, sanctifying grace. But no one can be a Marxist and be in the state of sanctifying grace, for Marxism is a form of Socialism: “Religious socialism, Christian socialism, are contradictory terms; no one can be at the same time a good Catholic and a true socialist” (Pope Pius XI, Encyclical Quadragesimo Anno, par. 120).

Francis claims that the Eastern Orthodox possess “Apostolic Succession.” Even though they possess valid orders and therefore have a material continuity with the Apostles, nevertheless they do not possess Apostolic Succession properly speaking: “[N]one of the separate Churches have any valid claim to it”, says the Catholic Encyclopedia, explaining further: “The Greek Church, embracing all the Eastern Churches involved in the schism of Photius and Michael Caerularius, and the Russian Church can lay no claim to Apostolic succession either direct or indirect, i.e. through Rome, because they are, by their own fact and will, separated from the Roman Communion” (Catholic Encyclopedia [1907], s.v. “Apostolic Succession”). This is how blatant Francis’ rejection of Catholicism is: All it takes is to open up the Catholic Encyclopedia to find out he’s not a Catholic.

Regarding the schismatic Monophysite Patriarch Tawadros II, Francis considers him his spiritual “brother” and, further along in the interview, says that “unity is a gift that we need to ask for”. Against this wicked distortion of Catholic truth, we highly recommend Pope Pius IX’s succinct Apostolic Letter Iam Vos Omnes (1868), Pope Leo XIII’s outstanding Encyclical Satis Cognitum (1896) and Pope Pius XI’s landmark Encyclical Mortalium Animos (1928). In fact, Pius XI refuted the very idea of “unity” as a goal of the ecumenical movement — as opposed to a return of the heretics to the already-unified Catholic Church — in the following terms: “And here it seems opportune to expound and to refute a certain false opinion, on which this whole question, as well as that complex movement by which non-Catholics seek to bring about the union of the Christian churches depends. For authors who favor this view are accustomed, times almost without number, to bring forward these words of Christ: ‘That they all may be one…. And there shall be one fold and one shepherd,’ [Jn 17:21; 10:16] with this signification however: that Christ Jesus merely expressed a desire and prayer, which still lacks its fulfillment…. The manifold churches or communities, if united in some kind of universal federation, would then be in a position to oppose strongly and with success the progress of irreligion…. [But] the union of Christians can only be promoted by promoting the return to the one true Church of Christ of those who are separated from it, for in the past they have unhappily left it. To the one true Church of Christ, we say, which is visible to all, and which is to remain, according to the will of its Author, exactly the same as He instituted it. During the lapse of centuries, the mystical Spouse of Christ has never been contaminated, nor can she ever in the future be contaminated…” (Mortalium Animos, par. 7, 10).

Then there’s Francis’ “Ecumenism of Blood”; that is, he believes in non-Catholic martyrs, true martyrs for Christ who, however, are not attached to the Catholic Church. This idea is explicity heretical, contradicting the dogmatic definition of the Council of Florence, according to which the Holy Roman Church “firmly believes, professes, and proclaims that those not living within the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but also Jews and heretics and schismatics cannot become participants in eternal life, but will depart ‘into everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels’ [Mt 25:41], unless before the end of life the same have been added to the flock; and that the unity of the ecclesiastical body is so strong that only to those remaining in it are the sacraments of the Church of benefit for salvation, and do fastings, almsgiving, and other functions of piety and exercises of Christian service produce eternal reward, and that no one, whatever almsgiving he has practiced, even if he has shed blood for the name of Christ, can be saved, unless he has remained in the bosom and unity of the Catholic Church” (Decree Cantate Domino, Denz. 714). (Sorry, no mention of “partial communion” here! So much for Vatican II’s “the Holy Ghost uses these separated ecclesial communities as means of salvation”!)

Regarding allowing unrepentant public adulterers (the politically correct euphemism is “the divorced and remarried”) to receive the Sacraments: There is nothing to “discuss” at a synod. It cannot be done, period. Those who live in such a situation (an invalid marriage with underage children) must repent of their adultery and live chastely and celibately, that is, like brother and sister, if they want to be reconciled to Almighty God. A good confessor should be consulted — we do not pretend to be able to give pastoral advice on this, just clarifying an issue with doctrinal and moral implications.

That’s it for our assessment — judge for yourself who is actually giving “Catholic Answers” here.